Holy Trout!

Gretchen, Bjorn and I went to Yellowstone Saturday with three goals: see an otter, see a moose, and see Kaila. We accomplished exactly none of those objectives. We did, however, play in the snow on Bearooth Pass, find spawning cutthroat trout, and some bears, all while being incredibly ridiculous.













A rainbow on the Wyoming side of the Pass.









































Many, many, many trout, and way too much time spent watching, harassing, and photographing them.

West Lake Fork trail

The last hike of the weekend was Sunday up the Lake Fork trail outside of Red Lodge. It got progressively colder until it started snowing!
































And awesome Birthday cupcakes by Gretchen!!

Hailstone Basin area

More birds, mostly of a predatory nature this time:












Golden Eagle


















Red tailed Hawk

















Northern Harrier


















Sharp shined Hawk


















Barn Swallow













Brown Headed Cowbird










Long Billed Curlew

Deadman's Basin

I attempted to go fishing today, but it was too windy for me to cast properly. So I wandered around and found lots of cool birds instead!











Eastern Kingbird












Western Grebe














Vesper Sparrow












Loggerhead Shrike















A Mountain Bluebird harassing some kind of black bird

















Killdeer













Yellow Headed Blackbird













American Coot












Another American Coot with chicks



















Eared Grebes

Crazy Mountains

Anne and I went camping in the Crazy Mountains and found high runoff and lots of snow left on the ground.

Beavers are larger than you'd think

And other Yellowstone River creatures and scenes...

Pryor Mountains

The last couple of weekends I've been going up to the Pryors to help Rob out with his small mammal trapping project. The trapping was ok, nothing really exciting, but we had some good times in the mountains.

















Bear Canyon













Trying to set traps in the hail/snow/fog day.













Finding a turkey and a campfire.









Found a bullsnake and, of course, a cow.
The next weekend was a shorter one, just Friday and Saturday for the end of the study.









A juvenile golden/bald eagle and camp.














A grouse and the low clouds coming down off the mountains.









A tiger beetle in the desert and a yellow-headed blackbird at the Bighorn visitor center.